Posted on 10/23/2006 12:00:01 PM PDT by blam
Domestication event: Why the donkey and not the zebra?
By Eric Hand
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(MCT)
ST. LOUIS - A few years ago, Egyptologists found a new Pharaonic burial site more than 5,000 years old. They opened up a tomb.
"They're expecting to find nobles, the highest courtiers," said Washington University archaeologist Fiona Marshall. "And what do they find? Ten donkey skeletons."
"The ancient Egyptian burial shows how highly valued (donkeys) were for the world's first nation state. After the horse came, they became lower status. Of course, they're the butt of jokes and all the rest of it. That has to do with the name mostly."
Hee haw. Marshall wants to know how the donkey was domesticated from the Somali wild ass. By traveling around the world, searching for bones in London museums and African deserts, she hopes to pinpoint the time and place of this event, which Marshall says was as revolutionary as the invention of the steam engine.
She also hopes to understand why the ass was domesticated and not, say, the zebra.
Animal domestication events are rare in human history. Of 148 land-dwelling mammals that weigh more than 100 pounds, only 14 were domesticated. These animals tend to have certain characteristics, like a strong hierarchy. That allows humans to slip in atop the order. Calm, social and non-territorial animals also made good candidates.
Yet wild asses - stubborn, territorial, flighty - have none of these characteristics. "That is the conundrum. By all the rules of domestication, they're not at all suitable," Marshall said.
Marshall is working with St. Louis Zoo researcher Cheryl Asa to understand how asses breed and behave in captivity, which could provide clues as to how they were turned into donkeys.
The St. Louis Zoo has five wild asses. Only a few dozen are kept in North American zoos, and only a few thousand cling to war-torn lands in Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia, where the zoo is funding conservation work.
While the vicious and flighty zebra has resisted domestication even by modern biologists, the ass was somehow domesticated in these lands at least 6,000 years ago, according to Marshall.
Pinpointing domestication events is a challenge. Marshall looks for subtle things to distinguish donkey and ass bones, like arthritis in a shoulder bone - evidence of a pack-laden animal.
The events are important to archaeologists because they have huge historical implications. Domesticated plants and animals let farmers stockpile food in a more predictable way, said Melinda Zeder, an archaeologist at the National Museum of Natural History.
"Domestication around the world has certainly been an incredible lever for human change," she said.
In one theory, the large number of domesticated plants and animals in the Fertile Crescent of the ancient Near East spread easily across the east-west axis of Eurasia. In his Pulitzer-prize winning book "Guns, Germs and Steel," Jared Diamond credits that for the eventual dominance of European powers.
Marshall said, "It helps us understand the trajectory that's been taken to the modern world. The places that are wealthy and powerful today had good conditions for domestication long ago."
But in Africa, something different happened, she said. Few plants were domesticated. Africans did domesticate cattle and donkeys, but that didn't encourage an intensive, settled agriculture. Instead, a herding culture thrived. Donkeys were the engines that moved men, women and children from pasture to pasture with their cattle and belongings.
Pastoralism is dying in the modern world as intensive, agricultural societies prevail economically. But Marshall says donkeys still have an important role to play.
Mules, the sterile offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, are used for agriculture the world over and renowned for their endurance. Miniature mules are now popular as pets. And donkeys are making a comeback as transportation for eco-tourists in southeastern Europe, Marshall said.
"The donkey is a gift that Africa had for the world," she said.
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The estimated date and place for animal domestication changes as archaeologists find new evidence.
Animal_When_Where
Dog_13,000 B.C._Asia, Europe
Pig_10,000 B.C._Near East
Sheep, Goat_9,000 B.C._Near East, South Asia
Cattle_8,000 B.C._Near East
Cat_7,000 B.C._Europe
Donkey_4,000 B.C._Africa
Horse_3,000 B.C._Central Asia
So right. They're really quite amazing to study.
There is a European Wild Cat (Felis silvestris silvestris) that looks just like our domestic housecat, but as I understand it, all attempts to domesticate it have failed. It's just too wild. The African Wild Cat is domesticable, and is assumed to be the ancestor of housecats.
Some years ago I had a friend who had a cat that he claimed was half Bobcat, half domestic. I don't know if such a thing is possible, but that cat actually looked like a bobcat/housecat hybrid, and it behaved like one, too. It was definitely not a purry, loveable lapcat, even though he had raised it from a kitten. It had longer legs than a normal housecat, too.
Impeccable reasoning on your part. I threw the book at a wall after a few chapters when I saw where it was going.
"....Only the elephant can dance, and it poorly...."
Cranes, on the other hand, dance elegantly.
I believe Diamond's distinction in "Guns, Germs and Steel" was in the herd nature of the animals. Ie Horses will follow their herd "leader" while Zebras will not follow the herd leader but resemble an pack of indpendant animals more. Humans can domesticate the animals that then follow them as the herd leader.
I agree Diamond is a lib. But His book does look at a larger system view of why some cultures dominate and some get wiped out. It's a good read for those interested in looking at how weapon/technology was passed/stolen among cultures. He discusses why those with domesticated animals develop immunities to germs that wipe out other cultures. Of course he missed the larger picture that those Countries that follow God and promote Freedom are More "inspired" and develop quicker. So his book is flawed in not acknowledgeing God. But as for analyzing the underlying processes that Plant and Animal domestication and transfer of technology and language among peoples, it's OK. I really thought it was a good read, and I'm a strict constitutionalist politially.
He has been criticized by the Green/Eco movement quite a bit too for the work he has done with Oil Companies, he talks about it in his next book, Collapse.
I believe you are correct. It is my understanding that all domestic cats descended from the African Wildcat, like the one pictured here:
I have also read that the domestic cat spread throughout the world so quickly because they took quite willingly to ships. Because of the rats that most ships were plagued with, sailors loved to have a good cat aboard who was happy to hunt rats all day down in the holds.
She was just keeping in practice, in case you ever kicked her out.
Good insight. Because there are tame zebras in the circus.
I'm not an expert but I believe that camels meet your definition of domesticated. (I don't think there are significant wild herds, and racing camels have been bread for hundreds of years (or more).
I don't know much about water buffalo or llamas and alpacas.
Yak wander around in herds on the Tibetan plateau?
This didn't start out as a kitty discussion, but it sort of ended up as one...
...or glove liners?
(The immortal) Thomas Nast.
Get an Ibizan Hound and you'll have no pests of any size or species.
If it can't run [or fly] faster than 40 mph, they'll catch it.
Where do Przhewalski's horses fit into this picture? I assume they are a different species than the domesticated horse.
And they fall over on their asses when you load 'em up.
Contrary to what my previous posts on this thread might indicate, there some kitties of which I approve, actively pursue.
Thank you, I agree. His attempt at an explanation was laughable.
I don't know of any evidence for that idea.
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